Understanding Physics (Student Guide)

This book, a companion to the textbook, is your guide to observations and explorations in the world of physics. Prepare for challenging work, fun, and some surprises. One of the best ways to learn physics is by doing physics, in the laboratory and everywhere. One cannot rely on reading and class work alone. The explorations in this book are your opportunity to gain some actual, hands-on experience with physics. Many of these explorations will assist you to design your own experiments and to discover many of the important ideas of science yourself.||As you will see from the Contents, this Student Guide provides a variety of potentially helpful materials. Following the Introduction is a review of units, mathematics, and scientific notation, and a list of suggest further reading and Web Sites. However, a large portion of the Student Guide contains further materials relating to many of the textbook chapters, as well as to laboratory explorations. In the section containing Further Chapter Materials you will find elaborations on topics in many of the chapters, as well as derivations of important equations. A complete list of the suggested mini- and major-laboratory explorations is also given in the Contents. Each explorations is keyed to specific portions of the textbook, and lists are also provided of the explorations pertaining to each part of the text.||There are actually three types of laboratory explorations in this book: mini-laboratories, major laboratories, and some suggested laboratory activities. The mini-laboratories are hands-on experiences and demonstrations that enable you to observe and study an event in nature, either in class or in a laboratory. The major laboratories are designed for more in-depth exploration. Finally, the laboratory activities provide ideas for ways in which you might design your own investigations. All three types of explorations are closely tied to the material in the book.